This invention relates to a composition suitable for use in high pressure water jet equipment to remove traffic film and dirt from painted vehicles such as trucks, buses, railway trains and the like without the assistance of mechanical action. This invention relates to a cleaning composition particularly adapted for use in spray pressure cleaning of transportation vehicles.
Many companies believe it is important, from a corporate image viewpoint, to keep their cars, trucks, buses, etc. clean. Many of the above are painted with logos or other indicia of the owner. Traffic or road film builds up on these painted vehicles and requires some mechanical action, such as brushing or wiping with a detergent solution, to remove this film. While this is not difficult for small vehicles such as autos, it is difficult, time consuming and expensive for large vehicles such as truck trailers, railway cars and the like. There are mechanical truck washers and the like but these are expensive for an individual business to operate and maintain.
As noted above, some mechanical action was thought to be required to remove traffic film. Prior attempts to use high pressure water jet washers have not been completely successful. In fact, if too high a pressure is used, the pressure can damage the surface without removing the traffic film. Prior cleaners remove some dirt but the traffic film was not completely removed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,093,566 describes a phosphate-free spray cleaner for metals utilizing sodium metasilicates, sodium carbonate and EDTA dissolved in water with an ethoxylated wetting agent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,571 describes a heat dependent alkali gel cleaning composition based on alkali metal hydroxides and various nonionic surfactants. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,985 describes the combination of sodium metasilicate, alkali metal hydroxide and non-ionic surfactants in an aqueous system for cleaning metal surfaces.